


No Room for Innocence

by supernatasha



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternative Perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 23:06:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernatasha/pseuds/supernatasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shaggydog whispers secrets in Rickon's ears and the lonely boy clutches closer to the wolf, heedless of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Room for Innocence

_Memory come when memory's old-_   
_I am never the first to know._   
_Following the stream up north,_   
_Where do people like us float?_

 

The first time he lays eyes on the furred creature, mewling on the kitchen floor and crawling about, a shiver runs up his spine. He’s only three years old and the wolf is still blind, but he feels its gaze locked on him. He presses closer to Robb, trying to put some distance between himself and the thing staring at him, but Robb pulls away, distracted, trying to cajole his own animal into drinking from the milk laid out before the litter.

Beside him, Arya squeals with delight and throws her arms around her own squirming wolf, announcing, “I’m going to name mine Nymeria! Like the Queen who led thousands of ships across the Narrow Sea and conquered Dorne!”

“Wolves can’t swim, stupid,” Sansa sneers, petting her own wolf, who laps quietly with her long pink tongue. “They can run and they can trot, and they can mind their own like all proper ladies. They can’t swim.”

“But they can fight!” Arya snaps, baring her teeth.

Bran laughs, a sound filled with childish glee. Behind him, Jon poorly disguises his snicker into a cough. In his arms is a red-eyed and white-furred little wolf resting against his chest.

“Stop squabbling,” Robb mutters absent-mindedly, and again Rickon tries to catch Robb’s attention, tugging at his tunic. Robb doesn’t respond, only nudges his wolf closer to the bowl of milk and says, “He looks like the color of the sky before a storm. Like howling wind and grey clouds.”

Finally, Rickon can stand his own wolf’s fearful glare no more. “Robb,” he whines. “Don’t like.”

Robb fixes him with blue eyes. “Don’t like what? Your direwolf?”

“Scary,” Rickon whispers.

“Don’t be a baby,” Arya takes Rickon’s hand and puts it on the soft fur of the creature. “See? It’s just like a dog but hairier!”

Rickon jerks his hand back. He doesn’t like touching it. It feels like darkness, like when his mother kisses him good night and leaves him at night without realizing he’s still awake. “Robb!” he tugs insistently at his older brother’s tunic again until, with a great sigh, Robb heaves him up and stands.

“Okay, Rickon. We’re leaving for now, but Father made us promise to take care of them so you _have_ to get over your fear eventually. Okay?”

Rickon nods eagerly, anything to get away from the direwolf and its harsh blind eyes that stared into his soul.

 

When the King comes from the South, Rickon finds himself suddenly lost. His mother spends little time with him and all his siblings had someone their own age to sit with. He alone has only one companion: the wolf, now with eyes open, trotting from here to there, always trailing him. He wishes the stupid thing would leave him alone, but he had assured Robb he would at least try to look after it so he feeds it reluctantly and gives him fresh water from his own bottle, spilling droplets on the wooden floors that the wolf instantly licks clean.

In the middle of another torturously long feast, Rickon throws scraps of chicken down below his table where the wolf catches them in his mouth. Rickon giggles and the wolf barks softly up at him, begging for more with intelligent eyes, his snout wet and warm on Rickon’s ankle. “You really are just like a dog,” Rickon squeals, drawing his feet up. “A big, shaggy dog.”

When he’s done with his supper, the chicken leg is still fat with meat and Rickon throws it down, knowing in a few minutes it would be nothing more than bone.

 

Bran. Bran falls.

_Bran falls._

His older brother, who was always peering down at him from some perch, some parapet, some tower, balanced perfectly like a bird- he falls. Rickon is not told what happened, how it happened, only that it did happen.

Shaggydog tells him how Bran had been climbing a watchtower when he hit the ground, tells him that his brother had been watching from a grove of grass. Shaggydog licks clean his tears when his mother has not been in to see him all day and his stomach gnaws with hunger. The wolf is now Rickon’s size, more of a companion than his own siblings.

Rickon throws his arms around the wolf and cries himself to sleep.

 

“Robb, where is Mother?” Rickon asks. His throat feels parched and his eyes are swollen.

“She’s with Bran,” Robb says, but his eyes are fixed on the quill clutched between his long fingers and the scroll he’s writing on. Their mother is always with Bran. Bran fell.

“Shaggydog told me Arya and Sansa went South.”

“Shaggydog told you?” Robb looks up, mouth pulled up in a slight smile. “You’re sure no one else told you?”

“No, it was Shaggydog,” Rickon confirms, and puts his thumb in his mouth. He sucks for a moment, then takes out the thumb and says, “He says Sansa’s lonely without Lady, and he says Arya’s lonely without Nymeria.”

Robb’s lips turn into a hard line. “What do you mean? The girls took their direwolves to King’s Landing.”

“No, they didn’t,” Rickon smiles. “Shaggydog told me.”

For the first time Rickon can remember, the look Robb gives him is more than affection or annoyance. His brother looks back down to the scroll, chewing on his lower lip.

It takes Rickon days to realize the expression was fear.

 

When Shaggydog circles Tyrion Lannister, the amusedly small imp, Rickon feels Shaggy’s growls reverberate in his own chest. From a distance, he can hear Bran’s shrill voice in his ears, but all he can concentrate on is the scent of the imp’s blood inside his veins, the way his pulse pounds in his neck, loud and wet. Shaggy snarls and- _oh._ That’s the distinct flavor of panic.

It would be like a game, like a game he and the wolves played outside. Running, dodging. Only this time, the prey would be caught and devoured. Shaggydog tenses his muscles to jump and Rickon can nearly taste how sweet and refreshing the crimson liquid would feel on Shaggy’s tongue. All he has to do is sink in his fangs in soft flesh…

Just then, Bran’s voice breaks through his haze, “Rickon! Call him!”

Rickon’s eyes flick from the small man to the distress on his brother’s face, and he realizes Bran is unhappy. Rickon commands, “Home, Shaggy! Home now!”

Shaggydog bounds to him in two quick leaps, and Rickon clutches the wolf close to him. He tries not to let his disappointment show.

 

“I have lost a sister, and soon you will lose a brother,” Shaggydog whispers to him.

“No. Jon is at the Wall, and Bran and Robb are with me,” Rickon tilts his head in confusion and looks into the deep green of Shaggy’s eyes.

“For how much longer?” Shaggy asks.

“What do you mean?”

A keening deep in the wolf’s throat is the only indication of their conversation. To Rickon, Shaggydog murmurs, “Robb is leaving to fight in a war.”

“No, he’s not,” Rickon says, terrified- because it can’t be true but he knows it is because Shaggydog doesn’t lie. “He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t leave me.”

“He will leave you. And those who leave never come back.”

When Rickon asks Robb if it’s true, if he’s really leaving, Robb looks at him with angry eyes. “Who told you?”

Rickon shrugs, knowing once again that his wolf didn’t lie. He doesn’t answer Robb’s question. They never believe him when he says Shaggydog told him. “Please don’t go.”

“Rickon, who told you?” Robb demands.

“Robb, don’t go,” Rickon pleads.

“Who told you?” Robb repeats angrily. He looks like their father then, lines on his forehead and cold winter nestled in his skin. Robb calls one of his men forward and murmurs something in his ear. He turns back to Rickon. “I’m having Shaggydog locked up in the kennels. It isn’t good when you spend so much time with him.”

Rickon glares at his brother with spite. “No,” he says flatly. He wouldn’t dare. Shaggy was his only friend, and the only one who was honest with him.

“Yes. And I’m sorry, but I do have to go.”

And when Rickon screams and cries and kicks at the guards who come to take him to his room, he doesn’t know if he’s crying for Robb’s departure or for Shaggydog’s separation. He doesn’t care to know why he does it, only that he likes it, and he lets the anger consume him.

 

There are barely any guards left in Winterfell, a husk of a town, empty and dark and wholly abandoned. It’s just Bran and Osha and Maester Luwin and Old Nan, and the echoes of wolves howling at the night sky. So no one stops Rickon when he makes his way to the kennels and unlocks Shaggydog.

Shaggy yips like a pup and licks Rickon’s cheeks. The heavy metallic scent of blood hangs off the wolf's fur.

“I missed you, Shaggydog!” Rickon says, gripping the wolf around the neck and burying his nose in his coal black fur.

“Do you miss your Father?”

“My father?” Rickon pulls back, bemused.

“Yes. Your Lord Father is dead.”

“Dead?” Rickon whispers, feeling his heart drop. He is barely five years old. He does not know what _dead_ means, only that it means the same thing as leaving Winterfell: that they would never come back again and he would be alone. “How do you know he is dead?”

Shaggy whines and paws at the ground. “A wolf surrounded by lions cannot fight long.”

“Lannisters,” Rickon mumbles and feels salty tears pricking at his eyes. He wishes Shaggydog had ripped the imp’s throat out that day so long ago. “If my Father is dead, he will be in the crypts. Old Nan told me that is where all Starks go to rest.”

Shaggydog runs ahead of Rickon to the crypts, to the dank and dark crypts with its hulking stone monuments and their cold eyes looking down disapprovingly at the boy and his wolf. He stumbles for a moment, but Shaggy is there to guide him to the large empty crypt where his Father’s bones would eventually lie.

Rickon sits down behind the empty tomb, resting his spine flat on cold stone, and Shaggy settles down beside him for the long wait.

When his sleep is interrupted by unwelcome voices, intruding bodies- _they’re not Starks-_ Rickon lashes out and Shaggydog growls, springing out of the darkness to attack them. The crunch of Shaggy’s teeth on bone is the most satisfying sound he’s heard in weeks.

Rickon identifies who the intruders are and calls back Shaggy with a stirring of guilt. He is stabbed with the pain of brothers fighting. Shaggydog returns by his side and Rickon runs his hands over the blood on his maws.

The blood is salty, metallic and warm, like rust. To Rickon, it tastes sweet.

This is how vengeance will taste.

Stark crypts were tainted from that day forth. The arrival of outsiders had made it a place he could never again regard with the same respect. So he would think when he brought the Freys down, mostly to see the fear on their faces.

Later, in the Maester’s chambers, Maester Luwin rambles about the Children of the Forest, and how they could talk to animals. “They could talk to Shaggydog and tell him not to bite,” he laughs as he says.

_I can talk to Shaggydog,_ Rickon thinks, but he bites his tongue. Last time, Robb had Shaggy in chains for the same reason. When the old man pulls out the long sharp arrowheads of dragonglass, Shaggy’s ears perk up and he makes a small sound in his throat.

Rickon knows, even without speaking, that Shaggy wants him to take one. He clambers forward and tells Maester Luwin, “I want one, too! I want four _. I’m_ four.” He listens closely when the Maester talks of the Children, long gone, he claims.

But then Shaggydog’s hackles rise up and Summer joins his brother. Shaggy knows, _Shaggy knows,_ Rickon thinks, and tears come streaming down his face. He drops the arrowheads as a deep dread rises like bile in his gut and Bran embraces his younger brother.

His father is dead and winter is coming and he will have no time to mourn the disappearance of the Children of the Forest when he mourns for his family.

 

“Your father,” Shaggydog tells him, “He’s very proud of you. He wants you to know that.”

Perhaps Starks never die so long as the winter did not die. He stops mourning their death after that, only their defeat.

 

The Godswood is a solace. It’s where he goes when the Freys and Reeds get to be too much, when he misses his sisters like a dull ache in the back of his head- _I cannot remember how they looked_ \- and when Shaggydog runs off into the forest as fast as a bolt of lightning. He sits beside the warm geysers and sometimes he sits out on the cold ground and talks to Shaggydog, hones his hatred, sharpens his reflexes chasing after squirrels. Perhaps one day he would fight as well as Robb or Jon or Theon, all those who had left Winterfell and never returned.

His hair is as long as Shaggy’s fur, nearly as long as Meera’s hair and certainly longer than Osha’s. He plucks one of his own and one of the wolf’s, despite the wolf snapping at his fingers, and compares them. One as dark as night, the other as bright as the sun.

His fingers tremble as the wind picks up around him, snow playing in the air, reminding him of another wolf named after a storm. Despite the temperature, Rickon refuses to go back to the castle.

Old Nan used to tell him, _Fire cannot kill dragons._

And he knows cold cannot kill wolves.

But lions, pitiful lions- what would protect them from his claws?

 

It is not lions that are a danger to him, it seems. It is the krakens, rising from the murky depths of the sea and laying siege to Winterfell. Rickon regards Theon with contempt. Just because Robb wasn’t here didn’t mean Theon could sit in his seat.

Rickon tries to hold back tears, to hold back his ire, but he cannot stop himself from wailing every time they stop to rest, his hoarse voice rivaled only by the constant chanting of Hodor. They double back to Winterfell, this time without their wolves, and hide.

His Father’s crypt, still devoid of any bones, is almost like his own bed. The dirt beneath their feet is a silken sheet and the winter air is a quilt. He misses Shaggydog. Winterfell burns above them, no other indication other than the occasional flicker of light and the smell of smoke in his nostrils.

When they run from the only home Rickon has ever known, Osha carries him only halfway. “Put me down, let me run with Shaggydog,” he insists. Shaggy is the only one who will ever be honest with him.

He joins Shaggy on the uneven ground, both of their feet moving as fast as Rickon can manage, and he asks Shaggydog what’s going on, but the wolf only sprints ahead without answering.

 

Osha bargains them passage on a ship to Skagos. The wind howls and Shaggy howls with them, uneasy on the great swaying ship, his green eyes wide, paws digging into the wood below deck. He remembers Sansa, ages ago, telling Arya that wolves can’t swim.

Osha’s eyes bore into Rickon when she warns him, “You mustn’t stray from me when we get to the island.”

“Why?” Rickon asks defiantly. He wants home. He yearns for safety. All he does these days is clutch the obsidian arrowheads in his pockets and mourn for Winterfell.

“A hard land breeds hard people,” is all Osha says in response.

But land is far away. All they have now is freezing sleet and the dark deep water. Rickon loves the sea, its salty tang on his tongue, the way it lulls him to sleep every night, open air.

He is a Stark, but the sea reminds him he is also a Tully.

 

The first time he drinks blood from a man, Osha is far behind him, screaming his name. They have been on the run for several moons, and he’s exhausted, freezing, hungry, always hungry. Their journey from the mainland to Skagos had been tiring and he had run from Osha as soon as his feet had hit the ground, despite her warning not to. Skagos has a distinct edge. He can hear voices murmuring to him, like Shaggydog’s voice but darker, heavier, too low to make out.

Shaggydog is the one who drags the man’s body clothed in armor to Rickon, still warm, throat ripped out. Rickon kneels on the ground and closes the man’s drab brown eyes.

“What do I do?” Rickon’s voice squeaks.

Shaggydog growls and rips Baratheon gold colors off the man’s body, leaving his ashen chest bare. He digs in with his claws and snout until Rickon can see the white of bone- ribs. His long tongue laps at the blood pooling between those ribs without hesitation. Rickon reaches out, coppery hot blood washing his skin, and touches the ribs lightly. They feel as solid as stone. What were Baratheon men doing in Skagos? Slowly, careful not to get the rest of his clothes dirty, he lowers and sniffs the body.

_Blood._

Rickon’s tongue slowly snakes out to the man’s neck. The first hot steaming drop of blood that hits his tongue explodes with taste- bitter, honey, fury. He presses his lips firmly down at the skin and sucks, long streams of the thick coagulating liquid filling up his mouth. He swallows, parched, desperate for more. He pays no mind to his clothes, both knees in the mud and lips frantic.

He hears a sound behind him and when he jerks back, Osha stands there. She stares at him impassively for a long moment. Suddenly ashamed, Rickon waits. Finally, she says, “It seems Baratheon soldiers were sailing to the Wall with Stannis when they lost their way and ended up in Skagos. I see one has already met his end here.”

Rickon’s throat moves as he swallows and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “What will you do?”

Osha’s black eyes are emotionless when she says, “Get you cleaned up, princeling.”

Shaggydog trots behind him when Rickon rises and grimly follows Osha. Only a wildling could stomach such a sight, he thinks. Old Nan would have gasped and run as soon as she laid eyes on him, squatting like a feral cannibal. “You don’t think the Gods will punish me for what I was doing?”

“Those Gods, the ones that punish, they would never let a babe like you suffer so much as to end up here.”

“I’m not a babe,” Rickon tells her sullenly.

“They told me," Osha murmurs, not looking at him. "The sailors. They said, _if you bring a wild beast to Skagos, the land will speak to him and turn him into a monster._ I thought they spoke of the wolf.”

 

It has barely been a week. Osha keeps him hidden in the forests and Rickon cries some nights and Osha whispers to him, "You will need to stop crying soon. You are an heir to Winterfell and you cannot seem weak." Other nights, he hunts with Shaggydog- not man, not again. He is lucky enough Osha never brings the matter up again. But they find rabbits and squirrels, sometimes pheasants. Osha fishes well so they don’t go hungry. Not for that first week anyway, huddling around a tiny fire and pressing close against each other for warmth.

But the week after that, Osha falls to the ground midhunt, clutching her belly.

Shaggy and Rickon are at her side within seconds. “What’s wrong?” Rickon cries, his voice high and frightened.

“Berries,” Osha manages to say. “I picked deceptive southron berries but didn’t let you eat them, princeling.”

_Because they might be poison,_ Shaggydog tells Rickon.

Wide-eyed, Rickon tells her, “I’ll get help.”

“No!” Osha cries, “Just get me water.”

Rickon scrambles back to their makeshift camp and fills his pack with water. When he brings it back, Osha is at least sitting up. Rickon takes off his heavy furs and wraps them around Osha. She tries to protest, but Rickon backs away. Cold cannot kill a wolf, but it could kill a sickly woman, even one as hard as her.

His mind is spinning in circles. He’s just a child, he’s just a child, he can’t lose the only person he still knows, the only one who still wants to protect him, he’s just a child!

“Are you better now?” he asks in a small voice.

“Better,” Osha agrees, but her face is pale and her hands tremble when she gets to her feet. “We will eat what we have at camp. I can’t hunt in this condition.”

“Shaggy will bring something back for us to eat,” Rickon consoles her. “Do you need help walking?”

“If you think I can’t walk on my own, boy, I’ll smack your head until you figure out that I can.”

“Shaggy would chew your face off,” Rickon says, but he giggles and skips ahead of her.

“Aren’t you cold?” Osha asks, clutching at his furs around her shoulders.

Rickon shakes his head. “I can barely feel it.” Osha mumbles something under her breath about _unnatural_ but Rickon ignores her. Shaggydog abruptly runs into the woods and Rickon chases after him, leaving Osha and calling, “Wait! Shaggy!”

He stops abruptly at the sight before him. Some beast he has never seen before, smaller than a horse but with a horn, dark pelt and sharp teeth, stares at Shaggydog. Shaggy growls deep in his throat, hackles raised and fangs bared. He takes a wary step forward and the beast before them bolts into the foliage. Shaggy pounces and goes for it’s jugular, capturing the horse creature before it can escape. When it falls to the dirt, it’s blood is not red but a strange blue glinting with a silvery sheen.

Rickon gapes at Shaggy and the horse creature when he hears a noise behind him. He turns to see three people, two men and a woman, all three with painted white faces and blackened lips, staring at him. They grunt at each other, making strange guttural sounds, and Rickon realizes they are speaking in a foreign tongue. One of them with long black hair steps closer to Rickon. He shies back.

The man with the black hair brandishes a long curved knife and when he smiles, Rickon glimpses teeth filed to a point. Rickon’s pulse spikes.

“Stop!” Rickon cries and is embarrassed by the way his voice cracks. He needs to look strong, like a true Stark. But his throat is too dry to speak further and the man continues advancing.

A wave of rage courses through Rickon’s veins, voices murmuring to him to defend, to attack! From behind him, Shaggydog leaps over Rickon’s shoulders and lands on the black-haired man. Rickon shrieks and Shaggy’s claws tear at the man, jaw closed over his wrist with the knife.

The other two look startled, but the woman starts forward immediately. Rickon grabs the fallen man’s curved knife, nearly as long as his arm, and grips it tightly with both hands. He knows he will use if he needs to. He watches the woman come closer and Shaggy’s chest rumbles.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Osha snarls, appearing out of nowhere. Her dagger is held at the third man’s throat. “Or your little friend here will have the pleasure of watching his tongue dance in the dirt.”

The woman hesitates. She points a finger at Rickon and Shaggy. “Intruders,” she says roughly and spits.

“Harmless intruders,” Osha snaps back, though the dying man on the ground seems an obvious contradiction. “Children, boy and pup. Touch them and you both will die.”

“Wolf,” the woman points at Shaggy again. She doesn’t seem to know much of the Common Tongue and she has to think before she says, “Bad.”

Osha simply shakes her head. Her dagger presses deeper into the third man and he flinches. “No. Not bad. Try again or say goodbye to your friend.”

“Brother,” the woman growls. She drops her knife to the dirt and holds both hands up in surrender. On the ground, the first man gurgles one last time before dying. The woman looks up from his corpse. “What do here? Skagosi don’t like.”

Osha hesitates for a moment. “I should kill the two of you here and now, leave no one to spread tales of us.”

“No kill!” The woman looks frantic. “No kill!”

Osha presses the man in her grip close, hands groping at his body. It takes Rickon a few seconds to realize she’s disarming him, finding knives and throwing them off to her right. When she’s satisfied, she steps back from him. She points to herself and says, “Osha. And that, right there, is the prince of Winterfell and your lord, Rickon Stark.”

“Stark,” the woman gasps. She drops to one knee before Rickon. The other man follows suit. They both kneel in silence at his name. Rickon stands taller, straightening his spine. Shaggydog looks confused before sitting back on his haunches and licking the blood off his maws, red from the man and blue from the horse creature. Rickon tastes silver and metal on his own tongue.

Osha walks around the two Skagosi to Rickon’s side. “What do I do?” Rickon whispers.

She seems equally confused as him. “I hadn’t expected this,” Osha murmurs. “Tell them to get up.”

“Stand, people of the North,” Rickon commands, trying to sound like Robb. “You are under my liegance!”

“Allegiance,” Osha quietly corrects in his ear.

“Allegiance!” Rickon repeats, louder. His shrill voice rings out through the woods. “I apologize for the death of your friend, but there will be no more bloodshed if we do not come to harm.”

The two Skagosi get to their feet. The woman says, “Stark. Come, Stark. Food. Ale.”

“Where?” Osha asks warily.

The woman smiles again, showing her eerie filed down teeth. “The castle. Welcome to Skagos.”


End file.
